Atomic Kitten's the cat's whiskers

Atomic Kitten's version of Anyone Who Had A Heart has Number One written all over it, so don't be at all surprised when it does top the chart.

The song's been sung and covered by some fine singers since Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote it - Dionne Warwick and Cilla Black among them - but no-one's come near the Atomic Kitten version.

It's upbeat, sexy, and all the better for being sung by a group instead of a soloist.

Some songs (like Vincent or Bridge Over Troubled Water) are as good as sacrosanct and it's a foolish artist who dares to venture there, but this is one rare occasion where the cover, all these decades later, knocks all its predecessors into a cocked hat.

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

How many ways can you shout Olé?

I may be a little slow off the mark in noticing this - 34 years, to be precise - but I'm a little concerned about a line in the lyrics of Sylvia Vrethammer's hit Y Viva Espana.

It sounds simple enough: "That's why I've learnt the way to shout Olé!"

But why would she, or anyone else, need to learn the way to shout any word that has only two syllables?

Are there so many ways to shout such an elementary word that one needs to go on a course? Had Sylvia been getting it wrong until some kind soul corrected her? I think we should be told.

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

We're not fools, Jools

Just saw Sir Paul McCartney performing Got To Get You Into My Life on Jools Holland's turn-of-the-year TV programme... but credited on screen as "Jools Holland's Rhythm & Blues Band featuring Paul McCartney".

Surely not.

Important as Jools is, I'm pretty sure I was watching Paul McCartney singing his own composition and merely being backed by Jools and his fellow musicians.

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

Heather Mills (& Boon), a tragic heroine?

I've been trying all day to summon up some sympathy for Heather Mills-McCartney, seen blubbing on TV that she's been misunderstood.

I'll have another try tomorrow.

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

The King and the Bard

Thirty years too late, I realise, but somebody really should have picked Elvis up on his pronouncement in Are You Lonesome Tonight? that "Someone said the world's a stage and each must play a part".

"Someone"?

Try Shakespeare, Mr Presley.

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

Diana would have been so proud

Princes William and Harry have done more for the image of the Royal Family by organising the Concert For Diana event at Wembley than anyone else has since their late mother herself.

The 63,000 crowd at the stadium and the 400,000 TV viewers in 140 countries around the world were treated to the sight of both Princes dancing, singing along, and cheering throughout the concert to mark what would have been their mother's 46th birthday - a reaction that was as natural and spontaneous from them as it would have been unthinkable from, say, the Queen or the Duke of Edinburgh.

This wasn't a case of Royalty debasing itself in an unwise entertainment like the notorious It's A Royal Knockout debacle of years ago; instead, it was a classy, egalitarian, stunning feast of entertainment that their late mother, the Princess of Wales, would have been first in the queue for had she been alive to buy a ticket.

What was unusual about this event and the publicity leading up to it was the chance to see and hear the Princes themselves, unmediated and unfiltered by the media.

Instead of reading what The News Of The World or The Sun claimed that the Princes said, thought, or did, we actually saw and heard them for ourselves, speaking from the heart about their mother, and coming across as natural, self-confident and, above all, likeable young men who seemed a world apart from the Princes the media try to portray them as.

Fears were expressed widely until quite recently that the more accessible that members of the Royal Family became, the less they would be loved and respected because the mystique would be shattered. Those fears have proved to be so much speculation and ultimately groundless.

There are now at least 400 million people around the world who have seen the Princes as real, fun-loving, interesting and inspiring individuals who have the wit and vision to have organised an event of this magnitude and quality.

Not sure why there were so many obviously empty seats in the arena, though. It certainly wasn't through a lack of demand for seats, as Wembley could have filled it a thousand times over with people who'd have given anything to see a cast of performers ranging from Elton John, Joss Stone, Tom Jones and Rod Stewart to P Diddy.

So next time the miserymongers try to tell us that the Royal Family is on its last legs or is out of touch with the people, let's remind them of the sight of the two Princes joining in Mexican waves or swaying along with the crowd to Rod Stewart and his torch song Sailing.

Diana would have been so proud to see that her legacy is in the safest of hands.

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

Jessica makes her radio debut

Jessica Sweetman's growing army of fans might like to know that the 18-year-old singer songwriter has just made her radio debut on the Cornwall-based station Atlantic FM.

The extraordinarily-talented Jessica was playing a gig in London when the radio station rang her and persuaded her into their radio car to do a down-the-line interview.

They asked her about her Sterts Theatre gig, which went down a storm, and now have the distinction of being the first radio station to recognise the potential of Jessica before she becomes famous.

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

Jessica Sweetman, the voice of 2007

There are few singers you can talk of in the same breath as Katie Melua, Norah Jones and Eva Cassidy without the comparison seeming ludicrous.

Jessica Sweetman is one of them.

As unknown now as Katie Melua was before she got her break – and no less talented – Jessica Sweetman’s name will soon be tripping off our tongues as easily as her music will slip from our iPods to our ears. We can be forgiven for not having heard of her. Unless, that is, we happen to be regulars at one or two Pizza Expresses in the West Midlands where this singer-songwriter performs, or we pop into one of the pubs whose landlords have had the foresight to book her while they can still afford to do so without taking out a second mortgage on the premises.

For although Jessica sings in pubs, she’s not a pub singer. And neither is she a pizza parlour performer.

Some of the pub regulars may carry on with their conversation for now, and a few of the pizza lovers may show more interest in the choice of toppings than the topping performances she’s giving, but one day they’ll be kicking themselves for failing to give her their undivided attention when she was a few feet away from them and happy to talk, rather than surrounded by security men holding back the surging crowd as she wows them at the new Wembley Stadium.

Jessica is about to do her first gig in central London – the opening night of a restaurant. Record producers will be in the audience, and the chances of Jessica remaining an unknown by the end of the evening are about as likely as Stevie Wonder coming last in a karaoke contest.

Those producers are in for a treat.

For Jessica has been billed, variously and inadequately, as a Nora Jones tribute act, a Katie Melua soundalike, a jazz singer, and a successor to Eva Cassidy.

Although she can be any or all of those things – which is quite an achievement in itself – her strength is that she’s an original. Not the next Norah Jones, but the first Jessica Sweetman.

Yes, she can sing Norah’s, Katie’s and Eva’s songs as masterfully as they can themselves, but she has the rare ability to take a well-known song and make it her own.

She demonstrated that to the surprise of a pub full of people when she suddenly burst into an astonishingly soulful version of Jolene, the Dolly Parton song – possibly the last thing anyone present expected her to sing, and arguably the most interesting performance of the night.

To transform a country and western classic into pure soul showed courage, creativity, and a sense of adventure – a gamble that paid off.

Like Katie Melua, Norah Jones and Eva Cassidy before her, Jessica Sweetman is not easy to pigeonhole. Probably on account of the variety of songs her talents stretch to.

Her voice suits jazz, but it also suits soul, ballads, and good old-fashioned love songs. W H Smith would simply file her under Easy Listening – a category that used to be a ghetto but is now applied to just about any non-rocker or non-rapper who can sing, likes melody, and wouldn’t be rendered completely useless as a performer if a power surge knocked out the electronics.

Jessica has a purry, sensual voice, mature when it needs to be but still containing traces of a girlish quality that will endear her to audiences.

Don’t be surprised, either, if Jessica suddenly comes out with a cracking rendition of S-S-S-Single Bed – a song that Noosha Fox made famous but which could almost have been written with Jessica’s voice in mind.

The one category that Jessica Sweetman does fit into is a very exclusive one indeed. It doesn’t have a name, but you only belong in that category if your singing can send a shiver down listeners’ spines.

That takes some doing when you’ve only just turned 18, but Jessica’s been a member of that club for years.

Some prescient person in her home town of Sutton Coldfield encouraged her to take part in a talent competition. She entered, won, and kept on winning them – broadening her experience via a worship band at a Baptist church, a school radio station, and an open-mike evening at a folk festival.

Her first real break came at the Pizza Express in Sutton. “They had a jazz band playing and I asked how I could get a gig there,” Jessica recalls. “To my amazement, the band let me do a 10-minute gig as part of their set.”

Her public address system packed up just before she was due to go on stage at a second Pizza Express in Stourbridge. None of the local pubs had a spare system she could borrow. To Jessica’s surprise and relief, a heavy rocker who’d heard her sing before believed in her so much that he went all the way home, picked up his own huge PA system, and lent it to her for the evening.

Word spread, and Jessica was invited to audition at The Belfry, home of the Ryder Cup golf tournament. A prestigious venue that would have been just down the road if Jessica hadn’t just moved down to Cornwall with her family.

“We drove for four hours to Birmingham, did the half-hour audition, then drove four hours back,” says Jessica. “But they booked me, and I now perform there monthly.”

She won’t tell you herself, but the venue is booked out every time she plays there. But that’s part of the charm of Jessica Sweetman. Like X Factor winner Leona, she really doesn’t have the faintest idea how good she really is. And that’s very attractive to fans and audiences.

“When I’m singing on stage, I’m at my most comfortable ever. I feel more nervous when I come off! I’m always excited about it; I always live it. I never think ‘Oh, I’ve got to go to work tonight.’.”

Jessica’s manager is also her father, Mark. A songwriter himself, he’s passed on more than just his genes.

“My Dad told me how to write a song, how to play the guitar, how to get the gigs. He introduced me to a lot of music – jazz, rock, country, and pop – which has made me love music even more.

“I love a variety of music. Sometimes I do all this, then I put on a bit of 50 Cent.”

Mike Batt, the legendary singer-songwriter who made his name with Remember You’re A Womble and went on to write Bright Eyes and The Closest Thing To Crazy, struck gold when he discovered Katie Melua.

And someone, somewhere, is about to have the same once-in-a-professional-lifetime luck when they discover Jessica Sweetman.

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!

PS: Jessica's just launched her website at www.jessicasweetman.com where you can hear her incredible voice. And remember: you heard about her here. First.

Christian Sleep, an unsung hero

Undiscovered musicians can be a private pleasure. Imagine knowing Gordon Sumner before he became Sting, or popping round to young James Paul McCartney's house to hear the latest song he'd written, even before he'd bumped into John Lennon at the church fete. What a privilege that would have been.

Had neither of them made it, those of us who did know them would have felt a sense of frustration on their behalf, as they were clearly exceptionally talented but were denied the fame and fortune they deserved.

I feel the same about Christian Sleep.

Haven't heard of him? No, neither have most people. But if there's any justice, that will all change.

Christian Sleep lives and sings in Plymouth, England (the place where the Pilgrims sailed from, if you're reading this in the USA).

There are a lot of talented singer-songwriters around, but Christian's talent is exceptional.

Yes, he can sing all the covers as well as the next chap, but what elevates him head and shoulders above most of his contemporaries is his ability to write a catchy melody with a hauntingly memorable lyric.

I won't bother to explain what a melody is here for those who were unfortunate enough to have been brought up in the era of rap, sampling, and raves - look it up on Wikipedia - but suffice it to say that Christian Sleep's songs are melodious where others' are simply odious.

The first time he played me a song he'd written, She'll Be Waiting, I heard it just the once and found I still had it on the brain three weeks later. That, for a songwriter, is quite an achievement.

I had the privilege of hearing Christian playing early versions, often half-finished, of many of his songs - to an audience of one in his flat.

Wonderful as that was for me, it just seemed so unfair that the wider world wasn't going to have a chance to share in that pleasure.

Christian's voice is as gravelly as the drive of a stately home - reminiscent of Rod Stewart, Smokie, or Ben Mills from The X Factor - and wow, he knows how to use it.

Despite the failure of the music industry to discover him, Christian brought out his first CD, Vicious Circle, while he was still busking in Plymouth City Centre - a venue that was rather wasted on him as he has a voice that could stop traffic, but the area had been pedestrianised.

Now he's produced his second CD, The Moment Of Clarity.

Those who bought his first CD until it sold out, and those who are already buying The Moment Of Clarity, will maybe one day share the smug feeling of those who bought debut CDs by unknowns who later went on to become megastars and get the recognition they deserved.

If anyone reading this is a big enough player in the music industry to appreciate the talent of Christian Sleep and wants to open the door to fame for him, I'll be happy to pass on his contacts.

Meanwhile, you can hear what I'm talking about at his website.

And here are the sleeve-notes I wrote for Vicious Circle:

Christian Sleep has an extraordinary voice that’s already been compared to Rod Stewart’s at its roughest and to Don McLean’s at its softest.

It’s also been compared, not unreasonably, to a packet of gravel with a sore throat. All of which gives but an inkling of the power, the passion, and the pure emotion that rushes out and grabs you by the heart the moment Christian bursts into song.

This, his debut album, features seven of his finest – and every word, every chord, every note is written and performed entirely by this world-class singer songwriter… straight from his soul.

The first time that I, a hard-to-impress journalist, heard Christian play She’ll Be Waiting For Him, I knew he had a massive hit on his hands.

Three weeks after hearing it just that once, I still had the song on the brain and could remember most of the lyrics. If that isn’t the test of a classic song, I don’t know what is.

When Christian is playing to stadium crowds who’ve paid an arm and a leg for the chance to hear him, he might be forgiven if he smiles to himself as he recalls the days when he would sing for his supper outside Tesco in Plymouth, or would perform any of his hits for you for the price of a coffee in his favourite haunt, The Caffeine Club.

Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!